Event ID: 17 Error | Time Provider NtpClient: An error occurred during DNS lookup of the manually configured peer…

The fix for the Event ID: 17 error is pretty obvious but I promised my client that I’ll blog it so here it is:

Problem:

Event ID 12 is being logged in the System event logs on the domain controller (not all of them, just 1 of them):

The error complains about:

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Time Provider NtpClient: An error occurred during DNS lookup of the manually configured peer 'dc666;dc999'. NtpClient will try the DNS lookup again in 480 minutes. The error was: No such service is known. The service cannot be found in the specified name space. (0x8007277C)

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

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Resolution:

The reason why this is being logged is because there are invalid entries in the registry of this domain controller that is pointing it to invalid servers for NTP. To correct the problem, simply open up the registry with regedit and navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\NtpServer

Note that I’ve already removed the invalid entries in the above screenshot.

…then remove the invalid entries.

One this has been completed, the logs should be error free.